Officials see good in Galante

Published 1:00 am, Sunday, June 18, 2006

Cheryl Reedy, then New Fairfield first selectman, had only good things to say about James Galante when he faced a sentence for federal tax evasion seven years ago.

"I have always found Mr. Galante to be a man of his word, an excellent businessman, a generous and caring member of the community and someone who was willing to go out of his way to help provide for the needs of others," Reedy said in a reference letter dated May 3, 1999, and filed with the court.

She said last week that she would consider writing another letter on behalf of Galante if he is convicted again.

"If I was asked to write to the court about the good things James Galante has done, I would honestly be able to do that," Reedy said of Galante.

Galante was recently indicted on racketeering charges for allegedly working with organized crime to stifle competition against his various garbage hauling companies, which include Automated Waste Disposal.

Reedy is among many public officials and others in the region who wrote character/reference letters for Galante in 1999 before he was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for tax evasion. The letters were in response to a request by Galante's attorney, then and now,
Hugh Keefe
.

"The allegations are horrible," Reedy said, responding to Galante's new - and far more serious - legal problems.

"The result will be what the result will be. But his contributions to youth sports, to pediatric care, are good works that somebody didn't have to do, but he did," she said.

Most of the 1999 letters focused heavily on Galante's charitable giving. That was an argument Keefe pushed unsuccessfully in an attempt to persuade a federal judge not to detain Galante without bail earlier this month.

Reedy said in her letter: "I have always told anyone who asked that I wished I could have dealt with more vendors like AWD and Mr. Galante during the time I was first selectman."

Even though the HRRA is supposed to work evenly with all of the region's trash haulers, Reedy does not believe the 7-year-old letter creates an awkward situation for her.

"This was a character reference letter when I knew only good things," Reedy said. "That work stands on its own."

William Buckley
, the director of public works and engineering for the city of Danbury, also wrote a letter praising Galante's generosity.

"We have negotiated a number of contracts where AWD provided services to the city of Danbury, and worked together on traffic and utility issues,"
Buckley's
letter said.

It continued: "I have personally asked Mr. Galante to donate funds to charitable organizations that I was involved with. . . . Mr. Galante has always been generous with his donations."

Buckley declined to say last week whether he would consider writing another letter.

"Anytime you do something, it's a snapshot in history," Buckley said. "Based on what I knew at the time, I do not regret the letter. It was a totally different situation then. It was a tax charge."

In a letter dated April 29, 1999, Putnam County, N.Y.,
Executive Robert Bondi
said, "James Galante and Automated Waste Disposal have played a significant role in helping Putnam County establish an effective solid-waste disposal program."

Bondi, whose office was raided by federal agents last summer after the latest investigation became public, wrote the only letter that did not reference Galante's charitable giving or talk about Galante personally. Bondi declined to comment last week.

One letter praised Galante for his anonymous giving. After a teen was killed in a 1996 car accident, the family did not have the money to cover the funeral costs, said the Rev.
Martin P. Ryan
of St. Edward the Confessor Parish in a letter dated April 29, 1999. A fund was created to help the family before Galante stepped in.

"Jim Galante had stopped by to say the funeral and burial expenses (were) taken care of and the donation was to be noted as anonymous,"
Ryan's
letter said.

Ryan declined to comment for this story.

James Dyer
, who was Danbury mayor from 1979 to 1987, wrote during the 1999 case that, "I worked with many people from corporate executives to custodians. Jim Galante ranks among the very best."

Dyer recalled in his April 27, 1999, letter that he and Galante did not have a great start because Dyer's administration was tightening control of the now defunct Danbury landfill.

He also praised Galante for employing a young former Danbury city employee as a salesman after the man could not get work elsewhere because of serving time for about six months.

"He's done a lot of charity work that I believe was sincere," Dyer said last week about Galante.

But Dyer said he wrote the 1999 letter mainly as a favor to Keefe. It was Keefe who defended Dyer when the former mayor was acquitted of corruption charges in the 1980s.

"I will write a letter when I am asked," he said. "If anybody can get him out of this, Hugh Keefe can get him out."